CHESTER, Va. | Sam White got hooked on the Civil War early.</p><p>As an adult, he crisscrossed the Virginia countryside in search of wartime relics &#8212; weapons, flags, artillery shells.</p><p>But in February, White&#8217;s hobby cost him his life: A cannonball he was restoring exploded, killing him in his driveway. He was 53.</p><p>More than 140 years after Lee surrendered to Grant, the cannonball was still powerful enough to send a chunk of shrapnel through the front porch of a house a quarter-mile from White&#8217;s home.</p><p>White&#8217;s death raised concerns about the dangers of other Civil War munitions buried beneath battlefields. Explosives experts said the fatal blast defied extraordinary odds.</p><p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t drop these things on the ground and make them go off,&#8221; said retired Col. John F. Biemeck, formerly of the Army Ordnance Corps.</p><p>A Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives investigation will not be complete until the end of May, but police who responded to the blast concluded that it came from a Civil War explosive.</p><p>Experts suspect White died trying to disarm a 9-inch, 75-pound naval cannonball.